Jessica Rice helped to lead the LIU Brooklyn Women’s Volleyball team to a 3-0 victory over New Orleans on Sunday, the only win a LIU team would have over the weekend. Photo courtesy of LIU Athletics.

It was a rough weekend for the LIU Brooklyn team as the men’s and women’s soccer clubs each dropped a pair of games and the volleyball team dropped two out of three during the Campus USA Credit Union Invitational.

MEN’S SOCCER

The LIU Brooklyn Men’s Soccer team was in California for the weekend as it opened the season with a 2-0 loss to San Francisco on Friday and then followed that up with another 2-0 loss to St. Mary’s on Sunday to fall to 0-2 on the season.

LIU Brooklyn’s goalkeeper, John Connolly, saw seven shots from the San Francisco Dons and managed to stop just five of them. Unfortunately the goals came during the third and fourth minutes of the match, by San Francisco’s David Garrett and Mauric Diaz De Leon, to put the Blackbirds in a early 2-0 hole.

They would try all game long to come back and pair of shots from freshman Nathan Stewart, another shot from Nahuel Medina, and Kevin Lockhart. Only one from Stewart and Medina were on goal though as they were outshot 7-2 during the game.

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The Blackbirds didn’t put themselves in the same hole on Sunday, but ultimately struggled to score any goals despite a strong three-shot performance by junior forward David Nuemberg. LIU Finished with just five shots on the game though as Connolly saw 16 total shots from St. Mary’s.

Goals from that game came from St. Mary’s Ever De La Torre, with an assist by Rafael Sanchez, at the 58th minute and Carlo Eikani, with assists by Jake Steinberg and Ben Braman, at the 82nd minute.

The men’s team is back in action this Friday as it plays its first home game of the season at the LIU Field at 6:00 p.m.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

While the men were in California, the LIU Brooklyn Women’s Soccer team was in Las Vegas for the UNLV Tournament. Unfortunately, its weekend on the field wasn’t much better than the men’s as the Blackbirds lost 1-0 to New Mexico State on Friday and then fell 3-2 to UNLV on Sunday.

On Friday, the Blackbirds actually controlled most of the action during the game and outshot their opponents 12-9, but ultimately failed to get anything passed goalkeeper Jessica Schutter. Meanwhile, Jessica Sexton played a strong game and had just one slip up when she allowed a goal during the 48th minute to Layla Todd, with an assist by Katie Smith on a shot to the far right corner from about 15 yards out.

Shino Kunisawa led the Blackbirds with three shots, one on goal, while Madison Gomez, Jen Spicer, and Jenn Peters each had a pair of shots and Caroline Kaplan and Allison King had one each.

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Offensively things went much better for the Blackbirds on Sunday as they got goals from freshman Madison Gomez and Jenn Peters at the 25th and 81st minutes respectively. However, defense was a different story as Sexton allowed three goals en route to a 3-2 loss.

The game started slow as neither team had a scoring chance during the first 15 minutes of the game, but things heated up quickly from there. Kristin Sankey struck first as her free kick deflected off a LIU defender into the net to make it 1-0 during the 16th minute. Gomez scored to tie it at 1-1 nine minutes later when Peters assisted on her goal, a long shot from 30 yards out that went over UNLV goalie Kylie Wassell.

Things calmed down again until Addy Guida scored from Denali Murnan during the 54th minute on a close range shot. UNLV added another to make it 3-1 during the 79th minute from Jenn Wolfe, her fourth of the short year. When Peters scored two minutes later, with an assist from Danny Cardenas, it was too late to finish the comeback.

The turning point in this game was during the 74th minute when Shino Kunisawa took a pass from freshman Joanie Jacks and had a chance 18-yards out, but missed wide right on what could have been a game tying goal. Instead five minutes later the Blackbirds fell behind 3-1.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

While the soccer teams were on the West Coast, the volleyball team was in Florida for the Campus USA Credit Union Invitational. It dropped the first match of the weekend against Duke 3-0 on Friday morning (covered here), and was ultimately swept on the day as it lost to No. 9 Florida later that evening 3-1 (25-18, 25-11, 24-26, 25-17). However, the ladies salvaged the tournament by beating New Orleans 3-0 on Saturday to go home on a high note.

As I already covered the first game of day one, I’ll skip to the second game — LIU Brooklyn’s 3-1 loss to No. 9 Florida.

Despite the loss it was an exciting matchup between LIU and Florida. Florida took the first set 25-18 although the Blackbirds made it close early and trailed only 14-13 before the Gators pulled away at the end. Florida jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the second set. LIU would come back to make it interesting as they got within four to 12-8, but a quick 5-0 run by Florida knocked them out of the game en route to an eventual 25-11 beating.

LIU and Florida played a very tight third set with LIU jumping out to a 7-4 lead before Florida took a 10-9 lead. With Florida leading 23-18, LIU made it’s comeback as junior Mia Radisic had a kill that tied it at 24-24. Then back-to-back kills from Tamara Ignjic and Annika Foit helped LIU take the third set 26-24.

The fourth set was much more anticlimactic though as Florida took a 5-2 lead, built the lead up to 15-11, and then finished out the set, for the win, with a 10-6 run.

The Blackbirds are off until they head to Poughkeepsie to take on Marist on Sunday at 1:00 p.m.

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LIU Brooklyn finally experienced triumph for the first time all weekend when the volleyball team beat New Orleans 3-0 (25-15, 25-17, 25-6) for its first win of the season. The women really flexed their muscles against New Orleans too dominating them from the start.

In the first set the Blackbirds held New Orleans to just two kills all game. Annika Foit had three aces to take a 9-5 lead. Then sophomores Nicole Okeke and Cydni Asuncion had back-to-back aces to spark an 8-0 run to end the match 25-15.

The second set was closer, but only slightly as Foit got the team on a 6-1 run that left them with a 12-7 lead. It was 21-17, before Jessica Rice and Vera Djuric picked up three kills to end the set at 25-17.

The first two sets were just warm ups for the third which the Blackbirds dominated 25-6. They opened up on a 5-0 run, led 10-3, 13-5, and then finished on a 12-1 run to take the set and the match.

The women’s volleyball team is back in action this Friday when it heads to College Park, Maryland for the Maryland Invitational where it will take on Penn, Maryland, and UMKC.

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